“Friendship, huh? The thing that people go through, a tightening of bonds, something supposed to help people work together? I wonder how well it holds up to stress…”—a demonic philosopher

Alex stretches his arms over his head, leaning back to try to stretch it at the same time as well. It has been a couple of weeks since Alex fled the academy and joined up with the team of students. The last couple of days sees the students trekking through the forest, ragged, weary, but forging on. This whole experience, though, is a quiet time for Alex, one much needed after the tremulous times they had all experienced in the aftermath of the academy incident.

No one mentioned the incident at the academy, nor about what they had lost, complete silence engulfed the group many times on their trip, especially towards the beginning. It was almost as if it was a universal consensus that it should be left in the past never to be seen again. Grief still permeated their procession, and he had heard more than once crying and the name Olivia. Godert, in particular, as Alex came to know him after a genial greeting, seemed to carry a heavy weight, of what Alex was not sure.

Most of the group is haggard, bags lining the eyes of most of their members. Alex, as the first one up, starts to prepare breakfast and shaking a few of the others awake.

Alex was surprised at first that the group stuck together. When he had first met them, he had gotten the feeling that they had stuck together more out of necessity and the danger than anything, now that the unifying force of a common threat was gone Alex would think that they would go their separate ways.

They hadn’t though, and Alex had found something that he hadn’t quite experienced before.

Camaraderie.

At first, Alex wasn’t so sure he would stick with the group. He intended to split off from the pack to head towards the Albent manor, he was sure he could get there given enough time. When he learned that they were heading in the same direction, the other students having families back in the Albent kingdom and were very adamant about returning to them, he decided to stick with the group for a little longer. He soon got used to the comfort of having companions, and with nothing but the clothes on his back, he would have been lost once again without them.

Alex gathers some wood to start a fire and then starts shaving a branch to make some kindling. After having made a ‘tipi’ out of some of the smaller sticks, he places the tiny bit of kindling inside. Godert then shambles over, still groggy and out of sorts, and starts mumbling.

“When will breakfast be done Alex?”

Alex looks over to him, the bags around his eyes defined. Clear tonight was another restless night for him. Alex then points to his craftings of the beginnings of a fire.

Godert rubes his eyes with his sleeve, “We’re having a warm breakfast then, my dear mute friend?”

Alex nods, feeling a bit bubbly at the word friend.

‘I haven’t really had a friend before, so I’m glad that I have one now…’

Alex smiles.

‘It’s nice.’

Godert nods, before sitting down next to Alex, “Well, let’s get to it then.”

Godert points his finger at the kindling and starts breathing slowly, and then chants for a good minute.

Domain of fire

A small mote of fire drifts to the kindling, and it ignites while Godert falls back in exhaustion. Alex is quick to start blowing on the infant embers to keep it going, and the fire catches some of the larger branches he had found, and they have a fire.

Alex feels proud for a moment at starting the fire and then looks worriedly back at Godert.

‘It seems to really take a lot out of them, I don’t remember it being this bad at the beginning of the trip…’

Godert sits back up, “That usually would have been no problem at all, especially in a higher magic environment like this forest,” Godert glances up at the tall trees, “I was hoping that our bodies might somehow not close off…” Godert looks back to Alex, “But it looks like I was wrong, if it has been getting worse like this even in a high magic environment, then the shock must have been too much.” Godert turns his head and stares into the fire, “We even took the time to slowly acclimate in increments back to this magic density, but it seems like it was fruitless…” Godert gives a rugged sigh, “It looks like we won’t have any future as mages then…”

Alex’s face saddens, and he pats Godert on the back.

Godert gives a faint smile, “Well, we’re lucky to even have this kind of problem to worry about, especially after that…”

Alex nods and then gets the pot out of the communal bag, and Godert takes it to fill it with water while Alex tends to the fire and sets up the cooking apparatus. Their usual setup usually consisted of two large rocks of similar height (usually found the night before) and the large metal washboard on which the pot was usually put. It wasn’t perfect, but it did well enough for the five travelers.

Godert soon returns with the filled pot, the water coming from the nearby brook (part of the reason they had chosen to camp there in the first place).

It’s about then that an extremely agitated Able gets up and approaches the fire.

“Good morning Able, you look awfully grouchy today.”

Able gives Godert a dead-pan stare, “Well, I think you would be too if you had the night watch for five straight hours, I only got to sleep for an hour!” Able plops down onto a nearby log.

Godert rolls his eyes, “You wouldn’t have to take such a long shift if you wouldn’t insist on taking Alex’s as well…”

Able snaps, “Do you think we can really trust him? He suddenly appears with the director’s recommendation, after being sent to prison, even if the charges were dropped by the town it really puts his character into question. To top it off, we’ve only known him for a few days, he’s practically a stranger.” Able stands up, emphasizing his enthusiasm on the topic.

Alex gives Able a dirty look, Able none the wiser.

Able returns it fiercely, “Putting aside that I wouldn’t want a stranger guarding my back, even if I did know you, I doubt that you have the proper training to do the night watch in a woods this dangerous. We should never have included him on the watch-list, to begin with, not with him being mute, not in the Kablain woods, and not so close to the new border.”

Alex decides that then is the time to continue making the morning stew and goes over to the bag, hoping to continue to be not noticed by the bleary-eyed Able.

“Why we’re even trying to pull this stunt off in the first place astonishes me!” Able finishes, sitting back down.

Able’s loud words start to wake up the other two campers.

Godert gives Able a harsh stare, “You knew what you were getting into when you agreed to risk crossing the woods rather than continue to be forced to stay in the duchy. Even with the takeover by the western duchy’s forces, and the new director, the academy still functioned relatively well, but now that it’s been destroyed and the entire student populace been turned into internals? They weren’t going to reteach us that entire new system, and even with the magic in our bodies without knowing how to use it, the only benefit we get is a bit tougher constitution. The only fate we would have had is as meatshields they would throw at their enemies, and then fertilizer for their crops. We’ve seen it happen before, not at this scale, but did you ever wonder where the rejects went?”

Alex starts throwing in some different vegetables that they had managed to scavenge while listening to Godert.

‘So that was what that underground garden was… it was a fertilized field…’

Alex shivers.

“We both know that they wouldn’t let us leave, so we decided that it would be better to try to cross the border back to the kingdom, and with how militarized it has been lately we decided we would have better chances crossing through the forest, even as grim as those are. ”

Godert gets up and approaches Able, “You know this Able, you were part of the decision.” He pats Able on the back, “It’s fine to express doubt, and you’re free to return if you want, but it was a group decision to go in the first place. I just wanted to remind you of that.”

Godert walks past Able and approaches to two still-rousing figures.

Godert peers back, “And we have Alex on watch because he can make an awful lot of noise with that pot and ladle, which is why he carries them when he’s on watch, and that and eyes are all you really need when on the night-watch in this place. If the creature’s sneaky enough to get past a casual observance, it’s probably too sneaky to catch even if you were observing vigilantly, and if it’s big and easy to notice, it will make no difference if it’s Alex or someone else.” Godert turns back and kneels next to his bag, “You know all this already Able… I don’t know what kind of past you have with Alex, but I think it’s better to get some rest when the opportunity is available, we’ll be coming up on the border in a couple of days now, and we’ll need it.”

Alex watches the scene play out for a few moments, and as if proving Godert’s words right, he starts banging the pan with the ladle, signaling that the food is done.

Able becomes surprised, and wipes his eyes for a few moments, before confirming that indeed Alex was there cooking stew during his conversation. Able’s cheeks redden in embarrassment before he stomps off to get his own bowl as well.

As Alex starts ladling out soup, his own bowl sitting next to him waiting its turn before being used, he thinks over the previous conversation between Godert and Able.

‘I knew that they had their reasons for coming this way, but I never knew what they were…’

Alex looks out on the forest as he continues the mechanical action of ladling another serving paying little notice to Able as he takes his now-filled bowl away to enjoy.

‘This forest is probably more dangerous than it looks, better to be careful.’

Alex looks at the Godert and ladles him a serving.

‘Though everything is probably going to be alright.’

Sherry, the youngest of the group and once a freshman at the Irkian academy, is the next one up, and she holds out her bowl with a smile.

“Thanks for taking cooking duty today!” she says.

Alex nods, before giving her a serving of vegetable soup as well. Usually, he wouldn’t have had cooking duty and watch duty so close to each other, but after being asked by Sherry, he couldn’t really refuse. The bags under her eyes, standing out in a camp full of them, and the sobbing he would hear intermittently from her painted a sharp contrast with the smiling picture she would tend to show at camp, the dark bags under her eyes doing the same. So when she asked if he could take her duty for today so that she could sleep in a bit more, Alex agreed.

Alex looks at the last person of their group, he never really talked, to the point that Alex had mistaken for a time that he was mute himself (though probably due to inability instead of constant mage-speak), this was quickly corrected when he had been asked to take up his night watch, Alex had obliged more out of duty than anything else.

‘Not that I was sleeping much that day anyway, I must have gotten used to having a bed, even if only for a day or two, so sleeping back on the hard ground was hard.’

Nadr, as he had learned the boy’s name, was when Sherry had asked him to bring over the ladle during cooking duty, did not trouble falling asleep on the other hand.

It was clear for the betterment of the group that Alex take the duty then, and he did.

‘Maybe one of them will take my cooking duty soon? It would only be fair…’

Alex sees Nadr off before taking his own bowl and filling it.

Seeing a large amount of soup left, Alex makes to tell the group to eat up but stops himself once again.

‘It’s getting a real pain not being able to talk, and now I’ve probably lost my only chance to turn off this mage-speak for a while along with the academy.’

Alex looks around the camp as he walks over to where the rest of the group is huddled together, Sherry talking with Godert and Nadr listening to Able.

‘We’ve done well so far with what little we brought with us. I know that the quick pitstop in Irkia couldn’t last any longer than it did, but it would have been nice if we had gotten a slate or something so I could communicate with them, though the very fact that I couldn’t in the first place probably didn’t help matters there…’ Alex sighs, ‘it’s getting bothersome making due with gestures.’

Alex sits on the other side of Sherry and eats in silence, blowing softly on each steaming spoonful of soup, ripples going over the surface, and chunky vegetables slightly shifting their placement on his spoon. Alex tenderly places the spoon in his mouth, savoring the bland flavor.

‘Definitely not the best I’ve had, not my best work either, but it’s better than nothing.’

Alex had slowly built a bit of pride about his cooking skills, and considering the lack of proper facilities, or ingredients for that matter, his pride was rightfully earned. Though in comparison with Godert, anyone’s cooking would shine. Alex looks over to his two companion’s conversation.

‘It’s interesting how such a genial person makes such terrible food, though if anything he probably proves that there isn’t a relation between the two, at least not a good one.’

Godert had been quickly taken off cooking duty after the first meal he had made and had been regulated a double watch instead. Alex is sure Godert would prefer the cooking position but also knew that for the sake of saving ingredients and tastebuds that that wouldn’t happen.

Alex continues to eat in silence, listening in to the conversations happening around him and finishes the vegetables hiding underneath the broth. He then takes the bowl, tilts it back, and drinks the rest of the soup, the warm liquid slightly burning his tongue as it goes down his throat, but satisfying nonetheless.

Alex leans back and looks up to the morning sky, letting the hub-bub of the camp go on around him. They are cleaning up after the cooking (a separate duty, this time taken by Able). Alex knows that soon they will depart on a day-long trek and by the predictions made by Nadr (who had proven again and again to be the one with the best sense of directions)they should be reaching the border at the end of it.

Alex looks over the group as they start packing, preparing for the upcoming trek, while Able ladles the extra soup into a few jars.

‘I really want to speak with them, and I feel like we have a good relationship, but what Able said this morning… It’s probably best that they don’t hear my mage-speak. I think that Reynold said something about it waking up nearby mages? I don’t want to test if that also extends to the creatures of this forest…’

Alex gets up, brushing some of the dirt he had accumulated off of himself.

‘I hope I made the right decision by leaving with them… I’m sure that Reynold made it out of there, he is the director after all…’

Alex takes one last look at the sky framed by the canopy, before walking towards his pack.

‘Well, nothing to do about it now. For now, I just need to keep surviving.’

As the group leaves, a yellow-eyed wolf enters, sniffing for a few moments before howling.